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Chapter Text

Thel ‘Vadam hadn’t felt this—and pardon his language here—shitty in years.

When he woke up, his brain would lag behind a few seconds whenever he moved his eyes, and as soon as he stood up to try to get some water he blinked and found himself on the floor, dizzy with pins and needles running up and down his arms and legs.

The Arbiter cursed his awful circumstances as he managed to pull himself back up and onto his bed. “His” was a stretch; he was on the UNSC Infinity to talk with the human higher-ups about the war, and he was given a lovely private room. Which was wonderful, because it would’ve been incredibly embarrassing to be seen by his fellow Sangheili(or, heavens forbid, any human soldiers) falling flat on his face.

As Thel attempted to get his bearings, he frantically tried to think of an excuse. When he was with the Covenant, he could’ve just said that he was taking a day to meditate and to ponder the best path across the Great Journey, but that excuse wouldn’t work. Hell, it hadn’t worked with the Covenant until he was promoted to Shipmaster.

Maybe if we just tell them the truth, they’ll understand, the small, trusting part of Thel thought.

No, the much larger, more prideful(and, admittedly, fearful) part of Thel snapped back. We can’t appear weak to them, even if they are our allies.

Thel groaned softly, rubbing at his face. Gods, he felt like shit. Hot, flaming shit. Maybe if he told the truth, it’d work. Maybe if he locked himself in his room until the flare-up was over, that’d work too. Either way, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to work. 

If I tried, I’d just end up embarrassing myself, the Arbiter thought bitterly. Gods, he felt like ass.

“Hey, Arb!” A cheerful feminine voice spoke up from across the room. Thel flinched, jolting out of the bed out of habit and ending up splayed across his floor, groaning.

“Whoa!” Cortana winced in sympathy as she watched him fold his mandibles in tight and sit up. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” the Arbiter grumbled. “Just… dizzy, that’s all.”

“You don’t look “just dizzy,”” Cortana pointed out. The AI frowned, looking concerned. “Do you feel sick? You could’ve caught something.” 

Thel grimaced. “No, no, I’m not ill. I know what’s wrong with me, don’t worry.”

“Ah.” Cortana nodded, still frowning. “Then what’s wrong?”

Damnit, he had been hoping that she wouldn’t ask any more questions.

“Well, I don’t exactly know…” the Arbiter replied awkwardly. “Sometimes I get these dizzy spells whenever I stand up and I feel all… prickly. It’s fine, this has been going on for as long as I can remember.”

“Oh.” Cortana frowned deeper, looking more worried. “That sounds like a problem with your central nervous system, Arby.”

“I’m fine.” Thel gritted out as he pushed himself upright, swaying perilously on his feet as he felt all the blood in his body rush downwards, leaving that unpleasant tingling in his limbs.

“You really don’t look fine.”

“I’m fine, Cortana.”

“Alright, alright,” Cortana raised her hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, then. Are you going to be able to come to work today?”

The Arbiter felt his face burn with shame. “I—“

“Because you’re not. Unless you’re so idiotically stubborn that you decide to do so anyway, you’re not going to work.”

Thel’s mandibles flared. “And what if I am?”

“If you’re feeling well enough to go to work, then prove it,” Cortana challenged. “Touch your toes.”

The Arbiter blinked, confused. “…what?”

“Do it. Touch your toes.”

Thel rolled his eyes. He was the Arbiter, he could—

He couldn’t.

As soon as he bent down, all his blood tried to rush up to his head and he fell on his face, feeling something unpleasant curling in his gut and trying to exit.

“That’s what I thought.” Cortana nodded, fists on her hips as she stood above him on the holoprojector. “You’re not coming to work today. I’m penciling you off for the rest of the day, and you, sir, are on strict bed rest.”

The Arbiter snorted in surprise. “Under whose authority?”

“Under the authority of the AI that can call a medic in here, bucko. I’m not going to do that, though, since you seem to know what to do. Do you need anything?”

The Arbiter thought for a moment as he pulled himself back onto the bed, flopping down into the sheets. “…water. And a holopad, please.”

“Okie dokie, then!” Cortana nodded, then fizzed out of the room. The Arbiter stared at the spot where she once was, before laying his head down against the pillow with a sigh. He wondered who’d have to see him in this position.

“You… want me to take care of him,” John asked Cortana, baffled. “And you already wrote both me and him off for the day.”

The AI nodded. “That’s right. He’s not feeling too good right now, so be nice to him.”

“And I have no choice in the matter?”

“Oh, shut up, Chief,” Cortana rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “You aren’t going to complain about having a whole day with your boyfriend, are you?” She teased. The Master Chief felt his cheeks get hotter, and he sighed.

“Alright, fine. What do I do?”

“I don’t think he’ll want to eat until later, so just stick to water for now. Maybe get him some sort of clear broth around noon. Otherwise, just hold him and tell him he’s pretty.” Cortana advised.

“…that’s it? No medication, no specific exercise routines or something?” John blinked, scratching the back of his head.

“That’s it,” Cortana agreed. “It’s a central nervous system thing, there’s nothing much you can do until the flare-up’s over. Oh, but you can see if he’s up for sitting up after he eats! That might be worth a try.”

John nodded. “Okay.”

“Oh, yeah, he wants a holopad, too. And maybe try giving him a massage later~”

“Cortana!”

A knock at the door broke Thel out of whatever half-conscious pool he was in, and he blinked at the metal tiredly. “Come in,” he spoke, already dreading it.

The door slid open to reveal… John?

The Spartan was dressed in fatigues, combat boots, and a gray t-shirt with the UNSC logo on the left side. He had a glass of water in one hand and a holopad in the other. John looked worried, which was an odd look on him, but it still made the Arbiter’s hearts flutter. 

Thel quickly sat up, ignoring the way he felt his brain swim around in his skull in favor of smoothing out the nonexistent wrinkles in his under-armor. 

“John,” he greeted him.

“Thel,” the human greeted back. John stepped into the room, ducking under the doorframe as the door slid shut behind him. He tentatively approached the Arbiter’s bed, handing the holopad to him and setting the glass of water on the bedside table. “Can I join you?” He gestured to the bed. Thel blinked.

“Ah. Well, absolutely, but be sure not to stay too long. I’m sure that you have plenty to do today, yes?” Thel scooted over as John pulled his boots off and climbed onto the bed beside him.

“No, actually,” John replied. “Cortana gave me the day off.”

“She did?” The Arbiter chuckled. “Well, I guess we have all day together, don’t we?”

John nodded, the ghost of a smile gracing his lips as he pulled Thel down onto the bed with him, tugging the blankets over them.

If there was one thing that the Arbiter liked about humans, it would be how warm they are. Sure, that was probably because the Sangheili were cold-blooded and humans were not, but that didn’t mean that Thel couldn’t appreciate it.

He wrapped himself around the smaller human, the holopad and water temporarily forgotten in favor of pressing his closed mandibles against John’s lips, some sort of primal trill rising out of his throat as the human kissed all four of them.

“I have no idea how your vocal cords made those sounds,” John told Thel, his voice muffled by how he had pressed his face into his shoulder. “They’re so different than how you speak.”

The Arbiter shrugged. “I don’t know, either. They all have meanings to them, but I can’t make them consciously.”

John nodded, and they stayed like that, wrapped around each other, enjoying it while it lasted.

Chapter Text

Thel woke up to John tapping on the side of his mandibles. He groaned, opening his eyes groggily, trying to force both primary and secondary eyelids open. When had he fallen asleep?

“Thel?” John asked him, his voice somewhat warbled through Thel’s  tiredness. Once the sangheili got his eyes open, he noticed that John was trapped between his arms and legs. Well, not trapped, per se; the Spartan could probably leave if he wanted to, he just didn’t for whatever reason.

Thel cleared his throat “How long was I asleep for?”

“Thirty minutes,” John deadpanned. “Do you want some water?”

Thel nodded and lifted his limbs so John could sit up. It was humiliating to have his head gently lifted by a human so he could drink, but at the same time there was something oddly nice about it. Once he was done, he pulled John back against himself. The Spartan wrapped his arms around the sangheili in return, the action making the Arbiter’s twin hearts ache with happiness.

“You, er… look pretty.” John muttered into Thel’s shoulder. Thel raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Cortana told me to ‘hold you and call you pretty,’ so I am,” John explained. “If you don’t want me to, I’ll let her know that her advice didn’t work.”

Thel tightened his mandibles, thinking for a moment. “While it would be humorous to watch her try and make better advice, unfortunately I do want you to,” he admitted. “Please say that again.”

“You look pretty.”

Thel sighed. “Oh, you too, Spartan. You too.”

It took another hour for them to finally get to work. Thel reviewed messages from the Swords of Sangheilios and send out strategy plans in response, while John just laid there beside him. After a few minutes, the Spartan put his hands on his shoulders and started kneading the flesh there.

Thel groaned, feeling his muscles tighten then relax. He heard John—the bastard!—let out a huff of laughter before he pressed the heels of his hands in deeper.

“John, I cannot work like this,” Thel mumbled through slack mandibles.

“I have nothing better to do.”

Thel wasn’t going to argue; it felt incredible to be massaged. All the knots in his back and shoulders loosened under those warm human hands.

Eventually, the Spartan stopped. Thel was about to complain, but John sat up and stretched. 

“I’m gonna go get some chow. You want anything?”

Thel shook his head. His stomach still felt uneasy.

“Alright, then.”

John pulled his boots back on and left. In the time between when he left and when he came back, Thel managed to get much of his work done. However, there were still challenges to be had, because when the Spartan settled down next to him again he put a hand under his shoulder blades and started to push him upright.

“C’mon, up,” the Spartan urged. Thel sighed, pulling himself upwards to lean against the headboard. The dizziness subsided quickly, and John put a bowl of some sort of warm, clear liquid in his lap. Thel frowned.

“What is this? I told you I was not hungry.” He gave the liquid and experimental sniff. It smelled vaguely fishy and salty. Not bad, but he didn’t want to eat.

“It’s some kind of fish broth,” John explained as he took a bite out of some sort of common human food that had a bunch of fillings between two slices of bread. “Cortana told me to get that for you.”

Thel sighed. “You know, she’s really starting to get on my nerves with how she’s getting all up in my business.”

The Spartan gave a noncommittal noise in response. Thel stared down at the slightly cloudy liquid before he raised it up to his mouth and took an experimental sip. 

It tasted pretty much the exact same as it smelled: slightly fishy, slightly salty, not much flavor overall. Still, though, the Sangheili had to admit that the warmth helped to soothe his insides and put a warm blanket over all of his malfunctioning nerves.

John didn’t think that his partner would eat. He thought that Thel would at least fight him a little bit, not just give in.

“He’s probably going to act a little out of the ordinary,” Cortana had warned him when he was first heading to Thel’s quarters in the morning.

“How come?” John had asked.

“He probably- oh, I don’t know why I’m even saying probably.” Cortana sighed. “He doesn’t feel good and he won’t be himself.”

Turns out, the AI was right about every piece of advice she had given; it was almost impressive, even though that had been exactly what she had been programmed to do.

John watched as Thel sipped the broth with vigor, noting how his slightly translucent secondary eyelid slipped over. Apparently in sangheili that was a sign of happiness and comfort.

He munched at his own meal, a plain old BLT. Still better than ration bars, especially since the tomatoes and lettuce were fresh because of the ship’s on-board hydroponics system. 

Thel finished his broth rather quickly, staring down at the empty bowl. 

“Well, errr… thank you,” he told John sheepishly. “I suppose I needed that.”

John sighed, shaking his head slightly. “Stubborn.”

“Oh, as if you can talk about that!”

On the bright side, Thel stayed sitting up for the rest of the day. Once curfew fell, John decided to stay in Thel’s room. He could always say it was to monitor the alien while he slept. Cuddling counted as monitoring, right?

Oh, yes, it did. John monitored Thel’s hearts beating firmly against his own, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the soft chittering and grumbling sounds he made in his sleep that he probably wasn’t even aware of.

John monitored Thel for as long as he could, before finally succumbing to sleep himself.